How to stop absorbing other peoples negative emotions

In my book (search)"Emotional Freedom," I emphasize the importance of learning how to stay centered in a stressful, highly emotionally charged world. Since research has shown that emotions can be contagious, you can potentially "catch" fear, anger or joy from people without realizing it. If you tend to be an emotional sponge, it's vital to know how to avoid taking on an individual's negative emotions or the free-floating kind in crowds. Another twist is that chronic anxiety, depression or stress can turn you into an emotional sponge by wearing down your defenses. Suddenly, you become hyper-attuned to others, especially those with similar pain. That's how empathy works; we zero in on hot-button issues that are unresolved in ourselves. Negative emotions can originate from several sources. What you're feeling may be your own; it may be someone else's; or it may be a combination. I'll explain how to tell the difference and strategically bolster positive emotions so you don't shoulder negativity that doesn't belong to you.

This wasn't something I always knew how to do. Growing up, my girlfriends couldn't wait to hit the shopping malls and go to parties, and the bigger the better -- but I didn't share their excitement. I always felt overwhelmed, exhausted around large groups of people, though I was clueless why. "What's the matter with you?" friends would say, shooting me the weirdest looks. All I knew was that crowded places and I just didn't mix. I'd go there feeling just fine but leave nervous, depressed or with some horrible new ache or pain. Unsuspectingly, I was a sponge, sensing the emotions of people around me.

With my patients, I've also seen how absorbing other people's emotions can trigger panic attacks, depression, food-, sex- and drug-binges, and a plethora of physical symptoms that defy traditional medical diagnosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more than 2 million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue. It's likely that many of them are emotional sponges.

First, ask yourself: Is the feeling mine or someone else's? It could be both. If the emotion such as fear or anger is yours, gently confront what's causing it on your own or with professional help. If not, try to pinpoint the obvious generator. For instance, if you've just watched a comedy, yet you came home from the movie theater feeling blue, you may have incorporated the depression of the people sitting beside you; in close proximity, "energy fields" overlap. The same is true with going to a mall or packed concert.

When possible, distance yourself from the suspected source. Move at least 20 feet away; see if you feel relief. Don't err on the side of not wanting to offend strangers. In a public place, don't hesitate to change seats if you feel a sense of depression imposing on you.

For a few minutes, center yourself by concentrating on your breath: This connects you to your essence. Keep exhaling stress and inhaling calm. This helps to ground yourself and purify fear or other difficult emotions. Visualize stress as gray fog lifting from your body, and hope as a clear light entering. This can yield quick results.

Stressful emotions such as fear frequently lodge in your gut. Place your palm there as you keep sending loving-kindness to that area to soothe stress. For longstanding depression or anxiety, use this method daily to strengthen yourself. It's comforting and builds a sense of safety and optimism.

Visualize. A handy form of protection many people use, including health care practitioners with trying patients, involves visualizing an envelope of white light around your entire body. Think of it as a shield that blocks out negativity or physical discomfort but allows what's positive to filter in.

Look for positive people and situations. Call a friend who sees the good in others. Spend time with a colleague who affirms the bright side of things. Listen to hopeful people. Hear the faith they have in themselves and others. Also relish hopeful words, songs and art forms. Hope is contagious, and it will lift your mood.

Keep practicing these strategies. You don't have to reinvent the wheel each time you're on emotional overload. With strategies to cope, you can have quicker retorts to stressful situations, feel safer, and your sensitivities can blossom.

Every human soul seeks at its deepest level to be compassionate to open its feeling life to others. The PinkYarrow type needs to distinguish authentic compassion from overly sympathetic identification with others. Forsuch persons, the boundaries between the Self and others is quite loose and ill-defined.

This extreme opennesspredisposes the soul to easily “bleed,” or merge with it environment, particularly the emotionalaura of others. As a consequence, such individuals experience emotional confusion and oversensitivity, unableto identify which feelings originate from the Self and which from others. Sometimes this emotional merging Iunconscious; at other times, the individual willingly sponges up emotional debris.

Such a soul is extremely “allergic” toenvironmental confusion and disharmony, and hopes to dissipate such discord be internalizing it. Pink Yarrowflower essence imparts greater objectivity and containment. It teaches that true compassion comes from the heartwhich is in touch with its own spiritual strength. Such a person learns to give love that does not absorb, butradiates; that heals not by sympathetic merging, but by compassionate presence.

i totally share your feelings of being around big crowds of people, and i too until now never thought about why. when i was a child, id only play in a playground if noone else was there, if there were other children there id make an excuse to my parents like, oh im too old to play on the park, and they would say how i should be in there with all the kids. but i didnt want to, and im the same now, crowds of people make me anxious and feel like exploding. now you have me wondering if thats why im not a fan of people being in "my space" i like my personal space and get very overwhelmed if people come too close. Maybe i too am a sponge and thats why. Both my parents were incredibly sociable and always in the middle of a crowd, i always wondered whether i was adopted and that was why i was different lol, i now however know i wasnt, but still wonder why im not the same as them. My brother too is like me though, although we are not close so he may have changed but i doubt it. ok now im waffling so ill stop lol

One of the challenges of being, for me, is openness. By that, I mean I am very open to feelings. Even as a small child I was aware of energies and sensory input beyond the deemed normal range. I can certainly sympathize and empathize with those who have trouble in crowded venues or even on busy city streets. All l those people expressing at once is like a hundred people talking to you all at once.

I spent most of a decade or so either alone in the woods or busy in my headspace so when it comes to busy places with crowds of people I can become boggled easily if I am not conscious about it. In some ways it is like working your way through the woods, dodging branches and thorny bushes. At times it is a fanciful walk in a field of wildflowers. As much as we draw many serene feelings from our wilderness experiences you will find that the woods can be as crowded and noisy as a subway station as you spend more time there and open your senses.

One of the things I worked on as part of my learning to raise my total awareness was developing a heightened sensory awareness. it is my contention that extra sensory perception is simply a heightened sensory awareness and extension of our mundane senses. It all comes under the larger heading of "communication". More on this another time. I found that the more time I spent in the woods the more I heard, saw and sensed. As the senses grew so did the capacity to interpret and most importantly, filter the cacophany of input I was receiving. You see, our mundane senses do this naturally. It is how you are able to here a single person in a crowded room or become insensitive to nasty smells. In terms of our eyes, we are only consciously aware of a small portion of the data our eyes perceive. This is physiological.

In as much as we can learn to do this with all energies such as emotional, spiritual or cosmic, it is helpful to accept that you can filter the emotional waste of others naturally and easliy because it is a natural function of the senses. Visualization and imagery are useful tools to help you focus your filters or tune your senses to the frequencies you choose at your time of choosing while remaining available to receive your higher frequency streams. Sometimes, just knowing your sensory mechanism comes with this feature is helpful enough.

I think I'm going to try this Pink Yarrow esscence as I find myself becoming EXTREMELY prone to the negative energies of my parents. I try to visualize the white light, constantly ask for protection, cleansing, etc but its still so draining on me. I live in the city but every now and then I find myself going back to my parents house for a visit in the burbs (usually because i need something there) and when I do it becomes SO draining on my energy. All I do when Im there it seems is dwell on how completely unmotivated and unaccomplished Ive become and cant get past it. Once Im back in the city (away from parents) usually takes me a week to get over the bad energy I pick whenIm home. Its so hard on me I dont know why I keep going back. Im so torn, its complicated.

Shedding our own emotional and spiritual weight is a must in order to fend off the baggage of others. We all go through our sellf recrimination and self doubt and a lot of times we see our selves lesser than we truly are because we are not seeing through our own eyes or judging by our own standards. This is a big struggle in todays world. We are faced with meeting standards set by others in many areas of our lives or we are bombarded with messaging aimed to convince us/sell us on a standard we should accept, in order to be a member of the group or be successful. It is simply, others dictating your self worth. Step back.

When folks get caught up in this I often suggest they take a time out and talk to themselves about what they want. How conditional do you want to live because let's face it, if you want to chase after or compete for some of what life offers then you will have to accept that others will put conditions and challenges on your achievement unless you are of sufficient will to forge ahead without support or acceptance from your new peers. When I ventured into the mineral exploration field and started my own business I was told repeatedly that I would fail and couldn't possibly succeed at the high goals I had set. It's a cool story for later telling but I can admit that under normal circumstances they all would have been right since I knew nothing much about what I was attempting. I'm still in the business today and many had to admit that I was right and they were mistaken. Once my mind is made up to do something; it happens.

I was going through a lot of crap at the time too. My life as I knew it was in the crapper and had just blown up in my face. Big blows to my ego, self worth and grieving a great loss in my life when my commonlaw wife at the time(15 years ago) slipped from bipolar depression to schizophrenia. Heavy stuff. What I eventually realized once I was gone from my past life was to shed my personal baggage real quick. Own what I do own in terms of responsibility and consequence and reject ownership of other people crap. I've seen a lot of it as God has tasked me hard in this regard. Not to mention the challenges I put myself through, time and again.

Once I got past dealing with other peoples negativity I had to recognize my own creation of it in the process and how even my occasional negativities were drawing negatives to me. I learned a new way to talk , act, think and react. I always was an optimist but now...no holds barred. Soon I was manifesting reality and became a force of will. I saw things happen before my eyes I wasn't even sure were possible. Truly I was feeling sure that the universe could be at my command. I'll preface this by saying that it doesn't always serve God, you or the universe for this extreme state to be an abiding condition. Enjoy it when it happens. Most will have to settle for moments of glory and degrees after that.A lot has to do with focus and diligence.

Fair warning; just as much as when you are being negative you attract negativity there is the same reaction when you are over the top positive and projecting all wavelengths of light and good energy. My wife Christine is a significant light source in the lives of those around her and she is often inundated by drama and pain projected from those around her. She even wondered to me one day about why everyone always came to her to solve life and work problems. It has been demonstrated to me time and again that the darkness is always a force seeking to be and it is only the introduction of light that pushes it back and balances it. It is how creation began. You cannot extinguish a light whose source is perpetual.

It's fair to say we don't always get to have life exactly how we would like it and often you will see more profound challenge if you are on a higher path. If you are on a lower path I think it is you who is challenging you and there are no shortage of beings willing to help you descend; as there are equally as many willing to help you to help you to ascend. I don't mean the off to a spirit existence in fifth dimension form type of ascend. I'm talking about the human condition here. Sometimes we have to get out of our own way and sometimes we have to be our own coach and rally ourselves. Sometimes we simply need to take a moment to look at our self in the mirrors and ask ourselves what we want and give ourselves permission to accept it. You don't have to ask for it or beg and pray. It's always been yours for the manifesting.

i have been absorbing others emotions all my life, even as a child i felt 'different' it is reassuring to know im not alone. i only realised i was absorbing these emotions a few years ago and wondered why i felt over whelmed by what i felt...i am begining to understand my self more

Oh yes. When I know I'm going to be around strangers or a lot of other people, I carry black tourmaline with me so I'm not so distracted by the energies around me. If I'm going to be around a lot of spirituality-minded folks, I throw in some lapis and malachite as well. Not sure why on the those; they just always work really well as a combination to help me not take on other folks' energy.

From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I amalways quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.-Odd Thomas

I've been working on finding the perfect method, for myself, to keep crap away from me (who flung [etheric] poo?) - and for me, this morning I suddenly got the 'notion' to put my little piece of Black Tourmaline with my Hagalaz stone (there's a story behind that one) and through experimenting here with the computer - I am finding it is quite an effective pair.

I have the Hagalaz rune facing the computer monitor and next to it the small piece of Black Tourmaline...so far, so good.

(I still work with my essences though - they're my 'spiritual nuclear warfare' *evil grin*...I had just gotten an order yesterday in the mail and there were two in the order that helped the body's psyche calm down so much that I didn't need to take my Ashwagandha pill before bed - all I needed was 2 tbsp. of my Sleep Syrup I made and I was good to go...and this is an accomplishment...considering...)

You aren't the only one AngelMutley I actually got myself a arrowhead apparently they are good at wardning off negative emotions aswell but they are also good at warding off evil which is a problem for me at the moment too. The effect was massive the crystal actually burned my skin when I first put it on so I would say that I am not crazy there was some evil to ward off.

^ Oh that's interesting. I think for me, rather than a stone arrowhead, I'd probably prefer a harpoon spear (the metal spear that went inside the harpoon) - or the spear head at least. Wonder if I could get one...